Duong Huong - The Zenith

At night his dreams were splattered with red. Animals were slaughtered; blood squirted up; they screamed, jerked, and shook in crazy and desperate ways. All the people had their mouths splattered with fresh blood; all their smiles were also bloody. These images all appeared at the same time, on top of one another, tumbling, twirling in his mind. This had been the first time since childhood that he had experienced such fear. It was like the first time he had held a flashlight to clear a tunnel in which eternal darkness threatened one’s life. Thanks to that movie on African customs, he had found a comparison, a point of reflection. He saw that realizing the shortcomings of a nation was like having a fever: you must endure before you can cure.

That night he could not close his eyes, so he had read until the streetlights became pale white in the dawn light.

Then the storm of revolution had sucked him into turbulence. For years, he had thought he no longer needed to concern himself with what he considered his people’s “shortcomings.” He had had too much work on his hands. The struggle of his people against foreign aggressors was always unbalanced, with the scale permanently tipped in favor of the foreigners. In such circumstances, he could not possibly pay attention to all the details. He had to mobilize the citizens, because their unity provided the highest-quality strength, the kind of power most likely to bring victory in this unequal contest. For this unity, he had to accept things that he found to be “shortcomings.” For this unity, he had many times pretended to be blind in the face of coarse behavior and petty reprisals, which he was quite certain were habits of rebellion against culture itself. For this unity, he had to ally with those who belittled him as “someone with Bordeaux wine in his blood.”

On that New Year’s Day in the war zone, he had poured the bowl of duck’s blood into the bamboo tube he used for water, waiting until the afternoon when everyone left to play volleyball in the field before he dumped it out in the privy.

“Are you all right?” Vu suddenly asks.

The president understands that he has just put his hand to his chest to feel a pain in his heart: “Sometimes the tightness recurs,” he answers, smiling.

“With old age, everything is fixed in place, even death. Therefore, it’s smartest of all to learn to coexist with disease. And with disappointments…”

“First come the disappointments.”

They are silent. A floating moment spreads through the springtime, a moment when dampness mixes with sunlight to make a band of shining sea bubbles. They both hear a pair of larks singing somewhere. Then the chubby guard appears before the temple’s front door.

“Mr. President, the office just called to ask Chief Vu to go down to the landing field.”

“What time does the plane leave?” Vu asked.

“The office did not say when.”

“Please call them back to ask the exact time of departure.”

The soldier left immediately.

On the patio, the sunlight spreads like honey, calm and still yellow from the mountain peak. In that yellow, there is not the muggy environment often found in the low plains of the north, but a delicate, pleasant freshness, like the kind of fall weather found in Europe. He closes his eyes to find himself strolling along the river Seine when the leaves are changing color, where on both banks rows of reddish yellows and light reds burst into the sky like vibrant but fragile flames. The white bridges that appear out of the fog were not made for pedestrians but for painters and poets. He remembers the green slopes of Montparnasse; the lights along the streets, the arrows pointing to sidewalk cafés. Europe: part of his life happened there. He recognizes it by all the emotions that had been engraved deeply and permanently in his being, by the taste of cheap red wine on his tongue and the noise of the streets in his ears, by the remembrance of the colors of sunlight and sky. The warm memories of youth are tainted by the sadness of having been away from his country. When living there, he had recalled his homeland, missing it as a void, as a madness. Why now do his thoughts go back to that faraway land? Why now has it become something missing within him? Day by day that feeling is becoming more and more passionate, more and more filling his heart with emotion. So sad, so very sad! Nostalgic, so very painfully nostalgic! Europe! Europe! Is it that Europe is only a subterfuge to remind him of his now finished youth? Maybe he recalls Europe because he recalls all the dreams unfulfilled, all the journeys not completed. Was not Europe a land with both foe and friend and thus a companion both silent and nagging, until the moment of burial? He felt very tightly and permanently attached to a land that did not belong to him. Is this his own private drama or is it some eternal pain for every person?

“Chief, the office says that the plane will take off at four p.m. sharp,” the soldier announces, reappearing.

Vu replies in a very curt manner: “Tell the office I will be down there at four; a five p.m. takeoff is not too late.”

“Yes, sir.”

The president waits until the soldier leaves and says to Vu: “Why are you tense with them? Functionaries are functionaries.”

“Sometimes we have to slap their face so that they remember who we are. Not everybody becomes their servant.”

“That is not the fault of the little people.”

“You forget that every golden lord was toppled by his closest guards; they may be little people but they have big dreams. You forget Quoc Tuy? He started out as a professional pickpocket in the Sat market. He was whipped close to death because he did not give up his share to the boss. One night he sneaked in and stabbed his boss, who was in bed at a brothel. He then left his hometown and wandered south to become a plantation worker. There, he got class consciousness and chose to follow the revolution. He became Sau’s follower when the two shared a bunk in the Son La prison.”

“I thought he was much younger than Sau.”

“Exactly so. They are at least a dozen years apart. In prison, Sau turned himself into Quoc Tuy’s protective mentor. That’s how they treated each other. Quoc Tuy cleaned his pot, washed his clothes, and even scratched Sau’s back. That’s why Sau later appointed him minister of the interior. That was the most important ministry, with the most power; everybody knows that. At that time, many comrades saw the danger and protested, but Sau repressed them without mercy. His power was in knowing just how to use those whom you call little people. Then the time comes for the little people to use the littler people. The credentials most in demand are: uneducated, with a criminal record. Secondary credentials are being truly poor and stupid, of which the husband and children of that broad Tu of the fish market make perfect examples. Those two kinds of people become Sau’s main pillars of firm support. They will do anything he wishes. Have you forgotten Brother Le Liem’s report?”

“Everything is too late.”

“Yes, too late!”

He hears his younger friend swallow, as if he is swallowing the rage in his throat. He wants to say something to Vu to comfort him but can’t find the words for it. What could he do for Vu and what could Vu do for him now, under the circumstances? No alternative is satisfactory. At least while they sit next to each other they gain some unspoken comfort to soothe the heartaches. On the patio, the wind blows and the trees look naked. The singing of wild birds on the far side of the ravine mixes with the high-pitched chirping of nightingales on the patio, creating a soft, natural mountain harmony. Why are the mountains and rivers so beautiful but the people’s hearts so sad? When had he turned criminal toward himself and toward those others bound up with him? Oh, this question has not ceased to torture his aging heart, and it will torture him until he dies.